A media buyer shared (paraphrasing here):
Have you ever wondered why your ads worked great—2x, 5x, 10x ROI—when you’re running on a few hundred buckaroo budget…
…but goes wacky when you try to scale?
The answer: you’re fishing with the same bait
Imagine you’re fishing in a frozen pond.
There’s a thick layer of ice sealing off the water below. You can’t see what’s happening under. All you can do is…
Drill a hole, drop your bait, and wait.
*splash*
You hit an easy win. You start pulling schools out of the water.
One, two, five, ten…
…and it stops.
“Hmm, maybe I need to drop more bait?” you murmur.
But still, nothing bites.
You start drilling—all over the pond.
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Why? Because you’ve exhausted all the fishes—in this pond—that are interested in this specific bait. It’s time to switch. (flies, worms, jigs, spinners, minnows, etc)
Same for marketing:
A single type of hook attracts one kind of prospect.
When you hit a plateau…
It’s time to test different hooks.
I see this mistake a lot in e-commerces. Most brands focus on one or two big hooks. The most apparent desire in the market. They create ads, campaigns, promotions, and even social media posts hammering this angle.
It works well until it doesn’t.
Then, brands retreat to pushing bigger, badder discounts… still using the same hook. Not knowing that –
It’s time to switch up the big idea.
To give you an example:
I’m talking with an 8-figure tea company right now about leveling up their email marketing. A few days ago, when I came across a tea lover, I asked her:
“What are you looking for when buying tea? What makes you love/hate it?”
She told me:
“I’m rarely angry because it’s ‘bad’ tea. I’m angry when it doesn’t meet my EXPECTATION. If I’m paying for cheap tea, I’m okay that it’s bland. But if I’m paying for black tea… and it tastes like green… then I’m mad.”
This is such an interesting hook.
(very different from the ‘we have the best tea’ hook companies focus on)
And it’s worth testing.
Now, here’s the pro tip:
Email marketing is your best testing playground.
Treat it like a lab.
It’s a very easy (and affordable) way to test new hooks/angles/ideas.
Find a new hook. Write four emails—targeting different prospect archetypes. Run it to your list. Analyze the data. If it flops, you can move on to the next hook… or test it again.
But if it hits home…
Multiply that hook throughout your funnel, flows, ads, and contents.
Cheering for you,
– WYH